Mravaltavi – A Special Type of Old Georgian Multiple-Text Manuscripts

Dies ist eine Internet-Sonderausgabe des Aufsatzes „Mravaltavi – A Special Type of Old Georgian Multiple-Text Manuscripts“ von Jost Gippert (2011). Sie sollte nicht zitiert werden. Zitate sind der Originalausgabe in Michael Friedrich / Cosima Schwarke (Hrsg.), One-Volume Libraries: Composite and Multiple-Text Manuscripts (Studies in Manuscript Cultures, 9), Berlin / Boston: de Gruyter 2016, 47-91 zu entnehmen.


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contain the prayer, nor does the Armenian version of the legend as edited in Awgerean 1813, 480-510. 6 Cap. VII, 30. in the edition in Acta Sanctorum 1869, 747C. 7 See the edition by C̣ amalašvili 1999, 269, 15-18, and the new edition by M. Šaniʒe 2014, 326, 19-22; for the Greek text see the edition in Migne 1862a, 664. In the chapter preceding this in the Commentary (ch. 70, 'On the monks' life and their being soldiers'), the term mraval-tavi appears two times, once with mqeci 'beast' and once, with vešaṗi 'dragon'. In addition, the notion of 'having many heads' is met with in the same context in a decomposed form, applied to 'drunkenness (to which) many evil heads are attached' (mtrvalobay, mraval asxen tavni boroṭni). In this case, too, the Georgian version matches the Greek text (ἐπὶ τῆς μέθης πολλὰς ἔστι κεφαλὰς ἰδεῖν). See the synoptical arrangement of the passages in question, which also shows that the 'multi-headed dragon' of the Georgian text is a periphrasis of Scylla and Hydra as appearing in 'heads' = chapters'), this is built in exactly the same way as mraval-tavi, except for the cardinal number otx-i 'four' representing its first member. 9 By the way, this type of compound formation with numerals was in no way restricted to the figurative use of tavi denoting 'chapters', as or-tavi 'two-headed' proves which appears as the epithet of a dragon in another context. 10 1.3 The use of the term mravaltavi in denoting manuscripts can be documented since the Middle Ages, too. A striking example is found in the typicon of the Georgian monastery of Petritson (Bačkovo) in Bulgaria, which was founded in the second half of the 10 th century by Grigol Baḳurianisʒe, a Georgian nobleman from the province of Ṭao-Ḳlarǯeti in East Anatolia, who executed the office of a μέγας δομέστικος τῆς Δύσεως in the Byzantine Empire. 11 Ch. 34 of this text, which is likely to have been authored by the founder himself, summarises the precious items that were donated by him to the monastery, among them several manuscript codices. In the enumeration, which comprises 16 such items, there is one entry that names a 'big mravaltavi book', listed be-  ; 1975, 7). 10 In the Georgian chronicle Kartlis Cxovreba (ed. Q̣ auxčišvili 1955(ed. Q̣ auxčišvili -1959. -Note that the reduplication of the numeral ekus-i 'six' in the formation of ekus-ekus-prte-'sixwinged' (see p. 48 above) conveys the meaning of distributionality ('six each'). 11 In Georgian: sevasṭosman da didman demesṭiḳosman qȯvlisa dasavaletisaman; see the edition by A. Šaniʒe 1970 / reprinted in A. Šaniʒe 1986, chap. 1, 2 (p. 63, l. 33), and the edition by Tarchnišvili 1954, chap. 1, 10 (p. 8, l. 15); other occurrences ib., Ind., 2 (p. 55, l. 12 / p. 1, l. 14), and chap. 36, 1 / 109 (p. 119, l. 31 / p. 79, l. 28). As to the person see A. Šaniʒe 1971, 133-166; as to the title, Gippert 1993, 109 n. 6. In the chronicle Kartlis Cxovreba, the same person is styled a 'commander of the East' (zorvari aġmosavalisa; ed. Q̣ auxčišvili 1955-1959, vol. I, 318, l. 8).
12 Chap. 34 in the edition A. Šaniʒe 1970 / 1986, 113-114 / chap. 33, 102  The typicon has not only survived in Georgian but also in a Greek version of which at least two copies are known. 13 This version does contain the inventory, too, but with a peculiar difference just at the position under concern, given that it shows but one entry between 'St. Basil's Ethics' and the books of St. Maximus: 14 (21) Εὐαγγέλιον ῥωμαϊκὸν διὰ λίθων πολυτίμων καὶ χρυσοῦ καὶ χειμεύσεως.
(23) another small Tetraevangelion, with small silver inlets; ... ... Here again, we observe a mismatch between the Greek version of the Typicon and the Georgian text, the latter adding one more item. See the following synopsis which suggests the equivalence of gamoḳrebuli iadgari with μηναῖον ἐκλογάδιν, as davitni ertni following this clearly represents an entry in its own right (

As
Greek μηναῖον can be equated with Georgian iadgari, 23 we are left with the correspondance of ἐκλογάδιν and gamoḳrebul-i here. Within Georgian, the latter term has a clear structure, being the regular passive participle of the root ḳreb-'collect' with the preverb gamo-'out'; a structure that matches well with the formation of Greek ἐκλογαδι(ο)ν which contains the preverb ἐκ-'out' and the root λεγ-'collect'. Both terms may thus be taken to have denoted 'collective' volumes containing materials that were 'extracted' for liturgical purposes. 24 However, we must underline here that the usage of ἐκλογαδι(ο)ν was wider in that it could be used both with μηναῖα and with εὐαγγέλια and the like, while Georgian had to apply different terms in these cases; at least, mravaltavi was obviously not usable in connection with iadgar-i. Šaniʒe 1970/ 1986ed. Tarchnišvili 1954, 74 l. 28-30. 23 See the explanation given in Aleksidze et al. 2005, 480,

Title no. 17 from the 'ἐκλογάδιον book'
1. Nobody shall lead away by force a (person) that has fled into a church. Instead, he shall report the guilt of the refugee to the priest and seize the refugee together with him...

All in all,
Greek ἐκλογάδιον proves to have had a much wider distribution as a terminus technicus in referring to 'collective' codices or books than Georgian mravaltavi had. It is important in this context to note that there is no witness available yet that would attest the equivalence of mravaltavi and Greek πολυκέφαλον (or -κεφάλιον) in relation to written materials, in spite of the pursuant formation of both terms. To determine the exact meaning of mravaltavi in this sphere, it is therefore necessary to investigate its autochthonous usage in more detail.

The Old Georgian mravaltavis
According to Michel van Esbroeck's definition quoted above, mravaltavi books were 'collections' of homilies, sermons, and panegyrics which were used as 'lections' for the 'feasts of the mobile year', a definition that complies but for parts with the usage of ἐκλογάδιον in the examples discussed so far. Nevertheless, van Esbroeck's definition can be shown to be well founded, all the more since it agrees with the autochthonous tradition. As a matter of fact, the term mravaltavi has been applied by Georgian scholarship 27 to a restricted set of codices only, most of them matching the concept of 'homiliaries' in the sense of van Esbroeck. This is true, first of all, for the most famous of these mravaltavis, viz. that of Mt. Sinai (ms. Sin. georg. 32-57-33), which is the oldest dated Georgian codex known so far (of 864 CE, see below  (Abulaʒe 1944(Abulaʒe , 241-316 / 1982. 28 The texts of the codex were edited by A. Šaniʒe 1959. As to (undated) older mss. see below.
It is especially the last-mentioned feature that distinguishes the 'canonical' mravaltavis from εὐαγγέλια ἐκλογάδια and the like as mentioned in the Greek typica.
2.1 The Georgian tradition, which styles these codices 'mravaltavis', is well-founded, too, as it is based upon authentic attestations of this term in the codices in question. The most striking testimony is provided by the 'Sinai Mravaltavi' as the most prominent representative of this class of multiple-text manuscripts (MTMs). This codex, stored under three numbers (32-57-33) in the library of St. Catherine's Monastery after having broken into three parts 31 ( Fig. 2 showing its outer appearance of today), 32 comprises on 279 pages (140 fols.), written in beautiful majuscule letters in two columns, 50 different texts extending from the 'Speech of St. Gregory, Bishop of Neocaesarea, on the Annunciation of the holy Mother of God' (tkumuli c̣ midisa grigoli neoḳesariel eṗisḳoṗosisa xarebisatws c̣ midisa ġmrtis-mšobelisa), to be read as the first || 29 See the edition of the Sinai Mravaltavi by A. Šaniʒe 1959, 55, l. 1 and p. 70, l. 1 (fols. 54r and 67r of the codex). 30 See the edition of the Sinai Mravaltavi by A. Šaniʒe 1959, 74, l. 2-4 (fol. 70v of the codex). 31 The codex was first described by Cagareli 1888, 193-240 (also printed in Cagareli 1889, in two parts:  comprises the present nos. 32 and 33, and no. 86 (pp. 236-7), the present no. 57. The same distribution is still found in Marr's catalogue (1940), which describes no. '32-33' on pp. 1-26 and no. '57', on pp. 93-97. Garitte in his Catalogue des manuscrits géorgiens littéraires du Mont Sinaï was the first to join the three parts (1956,. of three lections on this topic (saḳitxavni xarebisani, 'Lections of the Annunciation') on March 25th (t(tues)a marṭsa ḳ ͞ e: fol. 1r, Fig. 3), up to the account of the 'Life of the holy and blessed Fathers who were killed by the Barbarians on Mt. Sinai and in Raita' by one St. Ammonios (cxorebay c̣ midata da neṭarta mamatay romelta moisrnes mtasa sinasa da raits barbarostagan, aġc̣ era c̣ midaman amonios: fol. 255v), 33 which is followed by a set of colophons (see below).
2.1.1 Albeit the beginning and the end of the codex seem to have survived, it has not been preserved in its entirety as several folios must be lacking in the breakages between the three parts. 34 Luckily, the four pages missing between fol. 84v, the last folio of the part assigned no. 32, and fol. 85r, the first folio of no. 57, have recently been rediscovered in the so-called 'New Collection' of Mt. Sinai, i.e. the bulk of manuscripts detected in St. Catherine's Monastery after a severe fire in 1975. 35 That the two folios constituting the manuscript now catalogued as ms. Sin.georg. N 89 36 do pertain to the mravaltavi, can easily be proven even though they have been damaged and some characters of the text are missing, given that they provide first the end of the Third Catechesis in Illuminandos by Cyril of Jerusalem, 37 which begins on fol. 77v in no. 32, and second, the beginning of the (Third) Sermo in Hypapanten by Hesychius of Jerusalem, which continues on fol. 85r, the first folio of no. 57. In both cases, the transition from the one codex to the other falls into a given word. The two letters eṭ-at the end of fol. 84v of no. 32 with no doubt pertain to the verbal form eṭqȯdes 'they said (to him)', corresponding to λέγουσι of the Greek text of the sermon; on fol. 1r of Sin.georg. N 89, the subsequent letters have been lost (Fig. 4), but the context clearly continues at the given position as shown in the following transcript: In the same way, the transition from fol. 2v of Sin.georg. N 89 to the first folio of ms. no. 57 (fol. 85r of the Mravaltavi codex according to the pagination applied earlier) can be proven to be consistent. In a passage alluding to the miracle of Jesus healing the blind man , the text of the newly found manuscript ends in the middle of the name of the lake Siloam, which continues with its third syllable on fol. 85r (Fig. 5). The homily is not available in any other language; 40 however, it is contained in the Udabno Mravaltavi, which is collated here for the passage in question. 41 It is obvious from this collation that there are but minor differences between the two mravaltavi versions: Siloam like that first one, with faith, and he will find (U: receive) the same sight, too.
The close relationship between the two versions of the text is also visible in the title of the sermon, which is now available for collation on fol. 1v to 2r of Sin.georg. N 89 (Fig. 2). 43 In the following synopsis, elements that are written in rubrics in Sin.georg. N 89 are printed in bold; elements that are missing in either one of the two versions are printed in italics, elements that differ otherwise (except for mere graphical differences) are underlined.
In the month (of) February, 3 rd ttuesa pebervalsa g̅  2.2 Returning to the question of the original meaning of the term mravaltavi, the Sinai codex becomes especially important because of its colophons. All in all, it is four individual colophons that were added after its last text, the first of them written down by the scribe immediately after the completion of his work, in the same majuscle characters as the main text (fols. 273v-274ra); it tells us that the codex was written by a certain Amona, son of Vaxtang 'the Sinewy' (?), 44 on behalf of a donour named Maḳari Leteteli in the Laura of St. Sabbas in Jerusalem. At the bottom of the same column (fol. 274ra), the scribe added a second colophon, in minuscules, which is on his own behalf. The third colophon, written by the same hand in minuscules again (fol. 274rb), must have been added some time later as it is about the donation of the codex to Mt. Sinai (Fig. 8).

S(a)ḳ(i)tx(a)vni migebebisani
The fourth colophon (on fol. 274v) is as well written in minuscules, but by a different hand and at a much later time. Its author is Ioane Zosime, one of the most productive Georgian scribes who lived and worked in St. Catherine's Monastery in the second half of the 10 th century; in the present colophon, he reports about the fact that he accomplished the third binding of the codex. On the leaf following this (fol. 275r), Ioane Zosime added the 'Praise and Exaltation of the Georgian Language', a hymn-like text possibly authored by himself, which is found in a few other manuscripts from Mt. Sinai as || 44 The epithet moʒarġuli is not attested elsewhere; the assumption that it may be derived from ʒarġvi 'sinew, vene' is tentative. well ( Fig. 9 and App. 1 below). As the present binding of the codex (Fig. 2) is likely to be Ioane's, he is also likely to have applied the front and back flyleaves, which stem from a Palestinian-Aramaic Gospel manuscript (Fig. 10). 45 2.2.1 One important feature of the colophons is that they provide us with at least two remarkable dates -that of the completion of the codex and that of its third binding. As in many other Old Georgian manuscripts, both dates are styled in two ways, once in counting the years since Creation, and once, according to the reckoning of 'chronicons', i.e. cycles of 532 (= 19 × 28) years. In the following transcript of the first dating, characters that are in red in the original are printed in bold again: 2.2.1.2 A third dating seems to be contained in the scribe's personal colophon, which is appended like a signature to the main colophon at the bottom of fol. 274ra. This remains obscure though, as it is introduced by an otherwise unknown formula which combines c̣ eli 'year' with preceding z͠ a, usually the abbreviation of the postposition zeda 'on, up, above'. Georgian does know a compound zedac̣ eli but this cannot be meant here as it denotes some kind of 'jacket', in accordance with its being built upon the homonymous word c̣ eli meaning 'waist, loins' (lit. 'above-the-loins'). The number, if read correctly as s ͞ ē, would mean 208, i.e. the year 987-8 CE if falling into the same chronicon; this, however, would be much too late to fit into the scribe's lifetime. 47 It seems rather possible that the dating might have been added by Ioane Zosime as he may still have lived by that year, even though the ornamentation of the line is quite the same as that of the main dating while Ioane Zosime's dating in the binder's colophon is without any peculiar decoration (see the excerpts provided with the transcripts below). And possibly, Ioane Zosime left his trace another time on this colophon, in writing l(o)c(va) q(av)t 'pray!' over the closing dots of its last line.
|| 47 It would be less promising if the number were to be read as s͞ n which would yield 250, i.e. the year in the year 6585, Georgian style, after Creation and in the chronicon 201.

l(o)cv(a) q(a)vt : amona mčxreḳlisatws
In his second colophon, which reports about the transfer of the codex to Mt. Sinai, Maḳari uses the term once more himself. Here, however, he adds explicit information on the contents of the book, in a form that may well be taken as a definition of the meaning of mravaltavi: Da me, glaxaḳman maḳari, ševc̣ ire c̣ miday ese mravaltavi c̣ midat-c̣ midasa mtasa sinas saqsenebelad da sargebelad tavta čuenta da sulta čuentatws.
And I, poor Maḳari, have offered this holy mravaltavi to Mt. Sinai, the most holy of all, for the remembrance and benefit of ourselves and our souls.

The information provided by the colophons of the Sinai
Mravaltavi is by and large confirmed by two later witnesses. One is the Mravaltavi of Udabno, which was already referred to above. For this codex, which is datable to the 9 th -10 th cc. as well, 49 a scribe's colophon has not been preserved; however, it does contain several later notes in the margins, two of which mention a mravaltavi mrguloani, i.e. a 'mravaltavi (written in) round (letters, i.e. majuscules)', obviously in referring to the codex itself. The || 48 The binder's colophon contains a rather enigmatic marginal gloss at the given position, which reads zroxa ḳacisa (in two lines). Probably the first word mirrors zroxi-in zroxisayta 'of the cow' of the text, while ḳacisa, gen. of ḳaci 'man', will pertain to Ioane's self-designation as being 'very sinful' appearing just to the right of it. Taking it in isolation, the gloss would mean something like 'the cow of man', which barely makes any sense. See Gippert 2015, 102 with no. 6. 49 See Z. Č̣ umburiʒe in the preface to the edition by A. Šaniʒe and Z. Č̣ umburiʒe 1994, 9. following transcripts are quoted from Zurab Č̣ umburiʒe's introduction to the edition of the Mravaltavi, according to which they were written by the same hand in an early Mkhedruli script (adrindeli ṗeriodis mxedrulit: p. 13). It will be evident off-hand that the second note is an extension of the first one, The second witness is the famous Gospel manuscript of Adishi which, according to the scribe's colophon appended on fol. 387r, was written in 897 CE (6501 after Creation / chronicon 117). A secondary note on the same page, written by a much later hand in nuskhuri minuscules, reports the removal, by a certain Niḳolaos, of the Tetraevangelion together with some other codices from Šaṭberdi, one of the centres of Georgian eruditeness in Ṭao-Ḳlarǯeti in East Anatolia, to Guria (Fig. 11). The list comprises, besides the otxtavi itself, a lectionary (qelt-ḳanoni) and other 'books', a mravaltavi that is not further specified. There is good reason to believe, however, that it is just the Udabno Mravaltavi that is meant here as this is likely to have been written in Ṭao-Ḳlarǯeti and was detected in the early 20 th century in the Gurian monastery of Udabno. 51 The following transcript comprises lines 6-14 of the note. 52 || 50 Interestingly enough, a comparable wording is found in the introduction to the Visramiani, i.e. the Georgian prose translation of the Persian epic Vīs u Rāmīn, which was compiled by the 12 th c.; here we read (p. 34, ll. 19-21 in the edition by A. Gvaxaria and M. Todua 1962): me quela vici da masmia siḳete da sepisṗiroba mati, romel ḳargi hamo ambavia brʒenta da mecniertagan tkumuli da šec̣ qȯbili palaurita enita 'I know all (that) and I have heard (of) their goodness and nobleness, which is a nice (and) pleasant story, told and arranged by wise and learned (people) in the Pahlavī language...'. Together with several other attestations of sepis ṗiri (e.g., in the chronicle of Queen Tamar's age by Basili Ezosmoʒġuari in Q̣ auxčišvili 1955Q̣ auxčišvili -1959; the chronicle of the Mongol invasions by an anonymous 'Žamtaaġmc̣ ereli' = 'Chronicler ', ib. p. 196, l. 4; or the Georgian prose translation of the Persian Šāhnāme, Šah-Names anu mepeta c̣ ignis kartuli versiebi, vol. III, ed. Ḳobiʒe 1974, p. 510, l. 21), this seems to suggest the note in the Mravaltavi to have been added after the 12 th century. 51 See Taqȧišvili 1916, 12 in the preface to the facsimile edition of the Adishi Gospels, and A. Šaniʒe and Z. Č̣ umburiʒe 1994, 5 and 9-10. 52 See Taqȧišvili 1916, 12, and A. Šaniʒe and Z. Č̣ umburiʒe 1994.

p(ria)dita xarḳebita -ašenen ġ(mertma)nḳlarǯetisa monasṭerni ševiaren da ševḳriben c̣ (mida)ni ese c̣ ignni:
with much endeavour I have visited the monasteries of Ḳlarǯeti -may God build them up -and collected these books: 3 Taking all this information together, we arrive at the following conclusions: a) the term 'mravaltavi book' was in use in Old Georgian as early as the late 9 th century and continued to be used in the following centuries, and b) it denoted codices that primarily contained texts authored by Church Fathers for the feast days of the year.
This agrees well with van Esbroeck's definition according to which mravaltavis were 'collections' of homilies, sermons, and panegyrics 'quite close to the Greek homiliaries', which were used as 'lections' for the 'feasts of the mobile year'. The question remains, however, whether and to what extent mravaltavis could also contain hagiographical texts. This question has recently been raised anew by M. Šaniʒe 53 according to whom the incorporation of hagiographical accounts was but a later feature of the Old Georgian mravaltavis.  55 To all these we may add the legends on the Apparition of the Holy Cross, the Finding of the nails used in the crucifixion, or the Finding of the relics of St. Stephen, which are represented in most of these codices. 56 3.2 The mravaltavi of P̣ arxali, allegedly the latest of the 'homiliaries' investigated by van Esbroeck, adds about 50 lives and legends after the last homily it contains (i.e. the sermon by Ioane Bolneli on 'Lazarus and the Lord's sitting down on the donkey's foal and his entering Jerusalem and meeting the children', to be read on Palm Sunday), 57 among them the autochthonous legend of the 5 th century Georgian martyr, St. Šušaniḳ. 58 The arrangement suggests that this set of texts is not part of the mravaltavi proper but represents a peculiar type of martyrology added to it secondarily; 59 this is all the more likely as the hagiographical texts that are met with in the other mravaltavis are not included in the 'extra' collection of the P̣ arxali codex but in its first part. 60 We may therefore assume that there was a fix reservoir of 'basic' hagiographical texts that did pertain to the mravaltavi materials traditionally and that the mravaltavis were thus not restricted to homilies in the proper sense right from the beginning. In this respect, we may adapt the wider definition given by Z. Č̣ umburiʒe according to whom mravaltavis were 'collective volumes which comprise works used as lections on certain feast days in church', 61 as this encompasses homilies as well as hagiographical accounts and the like. 62 4 Another question that remains open is whether the term 'mravaltavi book' might have been coined before the Sinai codex was written. As a matter of fact, the very existence of mravaltavi-like codices that antedate Sin.georg. 32-57-33 by some time has been claimed for long, especially for the lower layer of the palimpsest manuscripts A-737 of Tbilisi and M-13 of St. Petersburg, which are believed to go back to the early 9 th century. 63 || 61 Udabnos Mravaltavi, 7: mravaltavis saxelit cnobili ḳrebulebi, romlebic ama tu im dġesasc̣ aulis dros eḳlesiaši saḳitxvad ganḳutvnil txzulebebs šeicaven... 62 In contrast to this, the definition given by E. Taqȧišvili in the preface to the facsimile edition of the Adishi Gospels (1916,12), is disbalanced as it foregrounds hagiography ('«многоглавъ» (мравалъ-тави). Подъ этим названіемъ въ дрѣвнегрузунской письменности исвѣстны жизнеописанія святыхъ и слова и рѣчи отцовъ церкви.'); it may well have been influenced by the occurrence of the term in the compiler's colophon of a 13 th c. menology (of April) which contrasts the 'metaphrastic' versions of Saints' lives (cxorebata da mokalakobata, da c̣ amebata da ġuac̣ lta = 'lives and ministries, martyrdoms and toils') with 'the old Keimena, which are also called mravaltavi by some' (ʒuelisa ḳimenisagan, romelsa vietnime mravaltavadca uc̣ oden; see Ḳeḳeliʒe 1912, 340-1; note that the adverbial case in -ad attested here was erroneously taken to constitute a stem mravaltavad-i by P. Peeters 1913, 324). The first attempt to define the term mravaltavi is probably Al. Cagareli's who in his account of the Sinai Mravaltavi (1888, 235: no. 83 ~ Sin. georg. 32-33) styled it a 'святооческій сборникъ', i.e. a 'collective volume of Holy Fathers'. -Sulxan-Saba Orbeliani in his 17 th century dictionary (1965, 522 /1966, 516) records only the abstract noun mravaltaobay that might be derived from mravaltavi (in the sense of 'mravaltavi-ness' or 'being a mravaltavi'), glossed by him as mraval-gannac̣ ilebulivit, i.e. 'like (something) much divided'. The addition of 'katiġ.' in mss. ZAa of the lexicon obviously refers to the 'Categories' of Aristotle, as mravaltaobay occurs in the Georgian version of the commentaries of Aristotle by the Neoplatonian Ammonios Hermeiou, produced by the so-called Gelati school in the 12 th c., where it translates Greek τὸ κατὰ πλειόνων (within the text 'In Porphyrii isagogen sive quinque voces', see the edition by A. Busse 1891, 61, ll. 20-23 and the edition of the Georgian text by Ḳeč̣ aġmaʒe and Rapava 1983, 49, ll. 27-33): φησὶ γάρ· γένος ἐστὶ τὸ κατὰ πλειόνων καὶ διαφερόντων τῷ εἴδει ἐν τῷ τί ἐστι κατηγορούμενον· τὸ γὰρ κατὰ πλειόνων διακρίνει αὐτὸ τῶν ἀτόμων (ἐκείνων καθ' ἑνὸς λεγομένων), τὸ δὲ διαφερόντων τῷ εἴδει διακρίνει αὐτὸ εἴδους καὶ ἰδίου... ~ rametu iṭqẇs: natesavi ars mravalta da saxita ganqȯpiltad rayarsobisa šoris šesmenili. rametu 'mravaltaobay' ganarčevs mas ganuḳueteltagan (igini ray ertisad itkumodin), xolo 'saxita ganqȯpiltaobay' ganarčevs mas saxisagan da gantwsebulisa ... It is clear that mravaltaobay is not derived from mravaltavi here but directly from (the gen.pl.) mravalta 'of the many' occurring in the sentence before, thus meaning something like 'the mravalta-ness' in the sense 'the (use of the) word mravalta'. 63 For the former see Esbroeck 1980, 18-21; for the latter, Orbeli 1967, 125-134 (see Esbroeck 1975).
4.1 An even more archaic mravaltavi has been preserved in the lower layer of the palimpsest manuscript S-3902, which must go back to the so-called Khanmeti period, i.e. the first period of Georgian literacy extending from the 5 th to ca. the 7 th cc. A first attempt at editing its fragments was undertaken by Aḳaḳi Šaniʒe as early as 1927. 64 Depending on the readability of the lower script, the amount of text Šaniʒe was able to restore varies considerably from page to page; in some cases, it is but a few characters per line that could be made out in his days. This is especially true for the homily on the 'Envy of the Pharisees', 65 which is usually ascribed to John Chrysostom. 66 Besides the Khanmeti version represented by the palimpsest, the homily is preserved in Old Georgian in the Jerusalem manuscript Jer. 4, 67 as well as in two Greek recensions, an Old Church Slavonic version available in two codices, and one Coptic version. 68  they are also present in the P̣ arxali codex; 80 for here, they pertain to the 'martyrological' extension, not to the mravaltavi proper. In a similar way, the legend of St. Christina occurs in a Sinai manuscript that may be styled 'hagiographical' as it contains mostly legends of saints (Sin. georg. 6); as a matter of fact, none of the texts it comprises is met with in any one of the 'classical' mravaltavis. 81 It seems therefore preferable to regard the Khanmeti original of the Vienna codex as a prototype of a martyrology. 82

Conclusions
To sum up, it seems well founded to assume that manuscripts of the mravaltavi type existed in Old Georgian from Khanmeti times on, as collective volumes comprising homilies, sermons, and a few 'basic' hagiographical texts used as lections in the liturgy of certain feast days, thus constituting a special genre of MTM of unarbitrary content. It is especially those mravaltavis whose remnants have been preserved in palimpsest form that deserve to be studied more intensively. Not only in the Khanmeti palimpsests but in general, the Georgian mravaltavis contain texts or text versions that are either unique or archaic in comparison with other versions, which renders them important for textological studies far beyond Georgia.  Garitte 1956, 15-26. 82 It may be important in this context to note that both the Vienna palimpsest and the ms. Sin.georg. 6 contain the Protevangelium Jacobi alongside the legend of St. Christina; it is not likely, however, that the former text was written by the same hand in the palimpsest (see the edition, p. xxvi) and it was therefore treated as representing another original manuscript (no. V; 5-1 -5-26).